But in this case you should keep the USSR active in order to allow the players to choose regime and the sleep the country in turn 1, right? Also I feel it´s unfair to keep the USSR asleep because they will be unable to research and to build up their forces. And there was also the Russian Finnish war....

Bombur,

I'm not real sure what the difference would be...since it's designed as a human only scenerio. I can't even imagine how the AI would be able to deal efficiently with the map and army sizes.

As far as Russia being in from the start. It would likely be an auto-loss for the Axis player if the USSR was allowed to play from the start and even a half-way competent player was allowed the freedom to organize thier production, research and forces as they choose.

I think I would probably have to find a way to place so many restrictions and handicaps on what the Russian player could do for the first year or so of the game that it probably wouldn't be much fun to play.

Basicaly my thinking is that the Soviets should wake up some-time between the start and when the Axis is ready to invade. They'll wake up to a large but completely FUBAR Army and Economy.... and it'll be a race for them to turn things around before the Germans are able to do enough damage to push them past the point of no return.

For the Axis side, they won't know exactly WHEN the Soviets are going to wake up...but they will know the longer they wait...the more chances the Soviets have to wake up and start getting ready before the attack.

So they'll need to balance the need to attack quickly with the need to incapacitate the Allies strongly enough to allow them to finnish the Russian operation with minimal interference....and the need to build up a strong enough army to deal the Russians a critical blow when they do attack.

That's the way I'm hoping it'll play out anyways...I definately want the Soviets to be a winnable position. If they turn out to be too weak...then I'll either ratchet up thier starting strength...or increase the odds of them waking up so that they wake up earlier.

I'm not real sure what the difference would be...since it's designed as a human only scenerio. I can't even imagine how the AI would be able to deal efficiently with the map and army sizes.

quote:

-Ok, I understand...

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As far as Russia being in from the start. It would likely be an auto-loss for the Axis player if the USSR was allowed to play from the start and even a half-way competent player was allowed the freedom to organize their production, research and forces as they choose.

-Well, you could start with their army in a miserable state (to simulate the purges). Historically, there was a big expansion of the Red Army from 1939 to 1941. If the Germans are allowed to expand freely and the Russians become frozen, they will be in a very poor position.

quote:

I think I would probably have to find a way to place so many restrictions and handicaps on what the Russian player could do for the first year or so of the game that it probably wouldn't be much fun to play.

-Why not to play with Staff? Make staff more expensive and less efficient, Give the Germans a lot and the Soviets almost nothing. And then there is still the surprise invasion....(or maybe not...I don´t know how you organized events)

quote:

Basicaly my thinking is that the Soviets should wake up some-time between the start and when the Axis is ready to invade. They'll wake up to a large but completely FUBAR Army and Economy.... and it'll be a race for them to turn things around before the Germans are able to do enough damage to push them past the point of no return.

-Ok, this could be funny....

quote:

For the Axis side, they won't know exactly WHEN the Soviets are going to wake up...but they will know the longer they wait...the more chances the Soviets have to wake up and start getting ready before the attack.

-Good idea. Well, I´m ready to playtest if you want. As I´m a horrendous player, I could start with the Germans. If I manage to defeat the Soviets then the game needs a new balance....

Let me post something up in the Looking for Opponents section and see if we can get a 3rd...or maybe if we get 2 people...I'll bow out and let the other players duke it out as I watch. Sometimes I think it might be helpfull as a scenerio designer just to watch others playing... so you don't influence the course of play with your own preconceptions.

Maddoc, I suspect roughly it'll be the same sort of time investment as GPW or War in Russia to play....which certainly is a significant investment...but those seem to get a fair amount of play.

With a PBEM game, I think guys are generaly ok with a turn taking a couple hours to play, as they know they'll only be playing it once every few days. The real kicker, I've found seems to be turn around time, the more players you have the longer a turn sits in some-ones e-mail box waiting for them to get home from work...or find time to play it. That's what really seems to make for games that seem to play out in geologic time.

It's a shame because (IMO) games with alot of players are more fun.... as they create room for cooperation, coordination, diplomacy, back-stabbing and all that other fun stuff.... but they definately make for a much slower playing game.

It's my hope that the 3 sides (Allies, Soviets, Axis) works out to be a good compromise number for this scenerio....It fits nicely historicaly and leaves some room for diplomacy/cooperation while still keeping turn around time reasonable.

Also the AT Engine doesn't really have alot of built-in support for close cooperation among allies... things like basing and passage rights and drawing supplies from allies, etc. That's something I hope Vic will be able to beef up a little bit in the next version of AT.

On a side note, one of the things I've seen done in some games of the larger scenerio's is a team of players sharing one regieme. So one will play AGN commander for example, another will play AGC, etc... You have to take the game off the PBEM setting so that you can save during the turn...and send it on to the next player on your team...but it can be a real blast to play that way.... It DOES however, slow down the game quite a bit.

On another note, I'm trying to think up a good mechanic for simulating the Murmansk convoys.

What I was thinking about doing was creating a bunch of sea zones along the route and when the Allied player plays an Action Card have the event code calculate what the Russians get based off of the smallest number of Cargo Ship SFT's in any one of the zones. The idea being that if the Axis wanted to to disrupt the convoys, they'd send stuff up to sink the cargo ships and break the route....and if the Allies wanted to keep the route open they'd send cargo ships up along with escorts to protect them.

What do folks think? Has anyone found a good way to simulate these convoys in thier scenerios?

One idea would be to have one hex in Murmansk region that belongs to the West (lend lease offload area). And a special SFT called leandlease (or normal SFTs). Each round you check how many of the special SFTs are in the area (or how many of each normal SFT). Then it removes all SFTs from that area and instead add that many SFTs/supply/whatever to the Russian player.

It has the advantage of realism, so you really have to freight the aid and the germans really have to push it through.

- More bugfixes - Tweaked Hawker Hurricanes to be a bit more effective in Air Combat - Halved cost for building Light Flak to make air a little less dominant. - Adjusted Italy's Activation and Neutraility numbers to make them more likely to come in quickly - Upgraded Production for Stettin and Kiel to give Germany more naval production capacity. - Reduced Costs of Destroyers, Subs and Cargo Ships - Reworked Naval Units... ships now have different speeds..and these increase with Tech. Cruisers less deadly AA (especialy early war) but are now faster then other ships with good recon. Other ships have slightly increased AA but still vulnerable to naval air, especialy in early war. - Tech now costs double if researched before year of historical availability - Soviet starting War Footing tweaked up to 30

Yeah, an agressive German player can probably do that. It's not taking the hexes for a turn or two that is the big deal....it's sustaining that Front while the rest of your forces are off in Poland and the Allied player probably isn't worrying too much about a blitz through Belgium.

I gave the French thier historicaly OOB in the Maginot... but they have a fair amount of forces elsewhere that should be able to respond and bottle up any advances made early in the Maginot and possibly even push into Germany some. All depends upon the commitment of the 2 players to that front.

The setup is pretty historical...but the decisions the players make can divert from it by a wide margin. I'm not going to hard code anything that forces the Germans or French to sit in thier start lines and wait till April if the players decide otherwise.

The French should be able to hold the Maginot sector pretty well if the Axis hasn't diverted alot of forces from Poland already.

Well, even with a War Footing of 30 the French can easly win battles against german forces...it all depends on getting a good attack. All the standard AT stuff applies (soften up with air/artillery, concentric attacks, etc).

At this point, I'm not really sure what the best play is for the Germans on the Western Front is...it may be a severe push into the Maginot early on...it may not. Going to to take some games be played to really see that.

One of the things about making a major push into the Maginot early on is that the French defender can be pretty confident they won't have to worry about the Germans blitzing through Luxembourg or the Low Countries with most of thier forces (especialy the mobile ones) fighting in Poland. Which means the French have alot more troops that they can stack up in defence against the Germans attacking on a constricted front..... and the German Forces don't actualy start with alot of depth of reserve in the Maginot sector at start...meaning they can easly risk exhausting thier attacking forces and getting over extended.

The other factor is that unless the Germans pull thier fighters from Poland (which gives them less ground support against the Poles and less cheap experience for thier pilots) they probably aren't going to have air superiorty in the West.... which should make an offensive much tougher/more costly for them.

Again. We'll really have to see a few games played out to judge how effective a strategy it is. I see a few German players trying it out now...and that's awesome.... it's good to see people experimenting with different strategies. Right now, from looking at the different games being played, I'd have to say that the early Maginot offensives seem to be netting mixed results.... but it's still too early to really tell yet.

ORIGINAL: GrumpyMel The other factor is that unless the Germans pull thier fighters from Poland (which gives them less ground support against the Poles and less cheap experience for thier pilots) they probably aren't going to have air superiorty in the West.... which should make an offensive much tougher/more costly for them.

As you can see from AAR of the game against TheArchduke, I managed to break through Maginot line quite early. But although I have sent reinforcements from Poland to the western front even before the Polish units were all eliminated, it will not be an easy walkon now. The Archduke has build up a close defence line along the Moselle. It might be easier to break through this line having air support. But there are several British fighters, mainly Spitfires, based in France. As I think the German air force is not strong enough to stand a fight against the RAF, I use my fighters only to secure the rear of the front and dont dare to send any bombers across the Rhine.

So I realize right now what it means that missing air superiority causes a tougher/more costly offensive.

@ Grumpy: I noticed that Danzig is producing with 30 percent of its capacity, although Poland has surrendered and German war footing is at 100 percent.

What version of the scenario are you running? I am running Europs1O11.pt2 and even if i give myself 9998 PPs in the editor and check what happens when buying naval 1, 2, 3 or even 4... nothing odd happens...

Yeah, that's very strange behavior. Let me know what version and side you are playing and I'll double-check it. I could see a bug in the scenerio making some ships unavailable...but there is no way it should mess with vehicles.

Just a quick note, I'm in the process of updating this and putting the next version up as ATG specific. I hope to have something uploaded to the bank next week. Probably will use the old version graphics, as I stink at graphics. Although if anyone wants to volunteer on updating the graphics...I wouldn't mind the help.